Chapter 54

Chapter 54

His body burned from the inside, every part of him radiating a persistent, high heat. Beads of sweat coated his skin.

Ning Qiuyan had been this sick once as a child. With a fever hitting 41°C, he had babbled nonsensical syllables. It felt as if he had returned to that day; through a haze, he saw the streetlights shining into the taxi window, intermittently illuminating his mother’s anxious, devastated face.

Having lost his father at a young age, a vital role had been missing from Ning Qiuyan’s upbringing, and from his mother’s life as well. The two of them had depended on each other. He never felt unhappy; in fact, he had been more joyful than many children from ordinary families. But from the moment his mother was hospitalized, he had rarely fallen ill again.

It was as if a string in his body was pulled taut, and he consciously refused to let it slacken.

That glass of water had broken him.

It dissolved his entire consciousness, and Guan Heng’s presence allowed that string to finally relax.

Falling into a stupor, Ning Qiuyan vaguely heard Guan Heng asking him something. The voice was very low, right by his ear, but he couldn’t hear clearly and wasn’t sure if it was a hallucination. He was aware that the injuries on his body were being inspected and examined, and he was dimly aware that he wasn’t wearing much, but he had no strength to resist. He could only lie on his side, sinking into the mattress, opening his eyes just a crack to see the blurred silhouette of Guan Heng’s long, loose hair.

His lips were touched, and his teeth were parted.

A finger slid inside.

He parted his lips helplessly, feeling the finger probe into his mouth, tracing carefully over his palate and the sides of his tongue, as if searching for tiny wounds. He didn’t have time to swallow his saliva, so when the finger left, it was soaking wet.

The heat continued to rise, and his vision felt as if it were clouded by steam.

Everything took place in the dim light.

When he woke up, Ning Qiuyan’s stomach was so empty he felt like he could eat a whole cow, but his body felt much lighter. The scars on his skin, the damage to his lungs and throat, and all other discomforts had vanished. He had never felt his body in such good condition.

Guan Heng was gone. The room was still dark, lit only by the city lights outside the window.

It was raining lightly in Sujing, and the fine droplets on the floor-to-ceiling window shimmered.

Ning Qiuyan sat up in bed. The quilt slid off his body, and he realized he was only wearing a pair of underwear. He turned on the bedside lamp and saw a clean bathrobe folded on the cabinet, with a note resting on top.

[I have matters to attend to. Get some rest.

– Guan.]

Ning Qiuyan gripped the note and buried his face in his knees for a while, lost in thought. Only then did he walk out of the bedroom, his face flushed.

A warm pendant light was on in the dining room. Food sat on the table; the dishes and porridge were kept in thermal pots. The meal was light but accompanied by a few spicy side dishes. Whoever prepared this probably didn’t know when he would wake up, so they had thoughtfully arranged it this way.

Ning Qiuyan sat at the table and ate alone.

After finishing his meal and taking a shower, Ning Qiuyan returned to the living room and found a pile of things on the floor. He recognized them at a glance.

These were the items salvaged from his dormitory locker at school-mostly clothes and daily necessities. Because the items near the desk had been closer to the fire, very few remained. The laptop on the desk was burned so badly that almost nothing but the motherboard was left. A few books had survived, though their edges were pitifully charred.

There wasn’t much, and the items weren’t arranged very neatly. Perhaps out of respect for his privacy, they wanted him to organize them himself.

Had Guan Heng sent someone to the dormitory?

After these magical two or three days, Guan Heng had considered things that Ning Qiuyan hadn’t even thought of himself.

He sat cross-legged on the carpet to tidy his belongings, a small part of his heart itching slightly.

Even without his presence, he could still feel Guan Heng; it had been this way since they met. Perhaps they didn’t need to see each other every moment of every day, but Guan Heng’s care was always silent and meticulous-like the frequent light rain in Sujing, a gentle spring rain that nourishes all things in silence.

Suddenly, Ning Qiuyan remembered something. He quickly knelt up and began rummaging through the books.

Found it!

Agatha Christie’s Witness for the Prosecution.

When he bought this book, he had just watched the film version and was hopelessly captivated by the editing, the narrative, and the actors’ performances. He had bought the original book to pore over, reading it twice while trying to write music in his own way.

A whole corner of it had been burned away. The entire book was damp, and the pages were stuck together.

But none of that mattered. Ning Qiuyan urgently separated the pages and found a note inside that was also damp and nearly half-burned. The handwriting on it was blurred, but he could recite the contents word for word even with his eyes closed.

“Use it to play even more beautiful melodies.

I didn’t touch your compositions.

– Guan.”

The reason Ning Qiuyan had brought this book all the way from Wutong to Sujing was entirely because of this note.

He carefully spread the damp note out to dry under the light of the bedside lamp, placing it next to the new one Guan Heng had written. The paper was so thin from being wet that the reddish wood tone of the nightstand showed through. Ning Qiuyan looked at the two notes side by side, imagining Guan Heng as he wrote them.

Then, he continued organizing his things.

A short while later, someone rang the doorbell. It was Lu Qianque, who had brought the guitar Ning Qiuyan had left at the hospital.

“You’re awake?” Lu Qianque handed the guitar case to Ning Qiuyan and asked naturally, “How are you feeling?”

Ning Qiuyan took it and thanked him, saying he was all better. Lu Qianque smiled and said, “That’s good. You’ve been asleep for an entire day.”
It seemed Lu Qianque knew everything.

Ning Qiuyan asked, “What’s the situation at the hospital? How many people were injured? Are they in serious condition?”

He didn’t rush to ask about his own disappearance from the hospital or about school; instead, he showed deep concern for others. Lu Qianque answered each question in turn: “Two night-shift nurses were bitten, but neither is in life-threatening condition. The surveillance cameras captured Chi Yang’s assault and the moment he kidnapped you. For now, it’s being treated as a minor social incident-a mentally ill individual breaking into a hospital to attack staff and patients. Of course, we handled the situation behind the scenes. Don’t worry, Mr. Guan made an anonymous donation. Whether it’s the nurses, the bystanders, or the gas station employees, they will all be compensated and taken care of.”

Ning Qiuyan nodded, though he still looked worried.

Lu Qianque said, “Instead of worrying about others, you should think about your story for when you return to school. Being kidnapped by a madman in the middle of the night is enough to make you a campus celebrity.”

Ning Qiuyan: “…”

He was right. Four other people had been hospitalized due to the fire, and they were all staying on the same floor. Word of this must have spread!

Aside from delivering the guitar, Lu Qianque had come to say goodbye to Ning Qiuyan. He lived in Luochuan, which was even further from Sujing than Wutong, and he couldn’t stay away for too long.

Ning Qiuyan remembered Gu Yu telling him that because Lu Qianque had spent years tracking and dismantling the Huanle underground trade chain, he had many enemies out there.

Ning Qiuyan quickly asked, “What about Mr. Guan?”

A smile played on Lu Qianque’s lips.

It was obvious that even he could see through Ning Qiuyan’s thoughts.

However, having lived for so many years, he was like Guan Heng-he wouldn’t use such things to tease Ning Qiuyan. He maintained a proper sense of boundaries, ensuring Ning Qiuyan didn’t feel uncomfortable.

“Mr. Guan might need to stay for a few more days,” Lu Qianque said. “He hasn’t shown his face in public for many years. Now that he’s appeared in Sujing, there are many people he needs to see besides visiting the Blood Supervision Council.”

“The Blood Supervision Council?” Ning Qiuyan felt a bit nervous. From Lu Qianque’s previous explanations, he had a general idea of what kind of place it was. “Is it because of Chi Yang?”

“Yes,” Lu Qianque replied.

Lu Qianque seemed to think for a few seconds before gesturing for Ning Qiuyan to join him on the sofa.

“Don’t worry, Chi Yang won’t hurt you again.” He took out his phone, but before opening it, he looked at Ning Qiuyan. “It’s a bit gruesome. Prepare yourself.”

Ning Qiuyan nodded uneasily, but the moment Lu Qianque opened the video, he nearly vomited. He could only cover his mouth tightly, his eyes welling with physiological tears from the nausea.

On the screen was a bloody human head-Chi Yang’s head.

The cut at the neck was extremely jagged, the skin tissue torn and shredded, with muscle and blood vessels exposed as if the head had been ripped directly from the body.

The terrifying part was that Chi Yang was still blinking, his mouth twitching open and shut.

He was actually still alive.

Lu Qianque’s voice sounded in the video: “…By the way, there’s something I haven’t told you yet. It’s about Bai Zhilan.”

The camera shook.

Judging by the environment, it was the woods they had visited last night. Two cars could be seen parked in the distance. Ning Qiuyan must have been in the front car at that time.

Chi Yang’s head rolled its eyes.

“She’s still alive,” Lu Qianque said with a smile. “She’s living a good life on Du Island, enjoying her later years in peace and happiness for the rest of her life.”

Chi Yang opened his mouth and began to scream in agony.

The video progress bar was still quite long, but Lu Qianque turned it off at the right moment. “Sorry, I always seem to be showing you things like this. You’ll be afraid to look at my phone next time.”

Lu Qianque had been the one to show Ning Qiuyan the photos of Ray’s death as well.

This time, the level of gore was even worse.

Ning Qiuyan finally couldn’t hold it back and ran to the bathroom.

He threw up for a while, rinsed his mouth, and then washed his face thoroughly with cold water. Looking at himself in the mirror, he inexplicably thought of the dried blood he had seen on Guan Heng’s shirt collar the night before, and remembered Guan Heng standing outside the hotel’s revolving doors, looking elegant and composed.

There had been very little blood, and that black coat had been very clean. He didn’t know if Guan Heng had done the deed himself or if he had simply watched someone else do it.

Ning Qiuyan didn’t want to think about it too deeply.

Once he had calmed down, he returned to the main room. Lu Qianque had already put his phone away and told him, “Chi Yang has been handed over to the Blood Supervision Council. He will spend a long two thousand years at the bottom of the sea-or rather, a part of him will. This is merely the punishment for his massacre of sixty-two people on Du Island, his betrayal of his wife, and for hurting you.”

Ning Qiuyan leaned against the doorframe, his eyes moist. He asked, “Will Granny Bai ever know?”

Lu Qianque shook his head. He sat up straight, appearing approachable as always, even though he had a ruthless side.

It was easy for Ning Qiuyan to see shadows of Guan Heng in Lu Qianque.

“No. She doesn’t need to hear about a betrayal from decades ago again, and she never needs to know about these filthy things.”

When considering those close to them, they were always incredibly powerful and gentle.

They protected them with an almost obsessive devotion.

“It’s enough for her to be happy and at peace.”